Reader, that was good advice. It is as suitable to you as to Franklin. Will you not take it? Never be ashamed of doing anything that humility calls upon you to do, and "you will avoid many hard knocks." Try and look upon all work, however distasteful and unpleasant, as work for God. If Jesus Christ had been proud, do you think He would have borne all the taunts of those thirty bitter years? If S. Paul had been a proud man, do you think he could ever have written down that glorious list of troubles and hardships, suffered by land and by water, in the eleventh chapter of 2nd Corinthians? How often we hear it said of a man, "He’s a nice man, he’s got _no pride about him_." And if pride in others doesn’t please you, do you think if you shew pride it will be likely to please God? It was He who gave you that hatred of pride in others; but He gave it that you might correct it in yourself. And the day will come when pride will be destroyed. It is one of the greatest sins. Other great sins are covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, sloth. And the virtues which are contrary to these are humility, liberality, chastity, gentleness, temperance, patience, diligence. Ask yourself to-night before you lie down to rest this question, "How many of these last virtues can I say I am practising? Am I humble? Do I give, as I am able, of my time, or my money, or my sympathy to help any of my neighbours? Am I thoroughly pure in thought, word, and deed? Am I gentle and kind to all around me? Am I moderate in eating and drinking, and temperate in my habits of life? Am I patient under suffering, sorrow, or misfortune? Do I do my best to serve God and man, working hard in that position of life to which Almighty God has called me?" Reader, if you can say _yes!_ to all those questions when your conscience asks them, you need not have much fear of God’s reckoning day. "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." Trusting in Jesus for complete salvation, living in love and charity with your neighbours, you will pass the waves of this troublesome world, and land upon the everlasting shore, out of reach of the ocean waves. And down from the gates of the heavenly city will come to meet you, Jesus Christ our Lord, with the words which He has graciously promised to speak to all that humbly follow after Him here, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord[#]." [#] S. Matt. xxv. 21. *MARTYRDOM.* "Not by the martyr’s death alone The saint his crown in heaven has won; There is a triumph robe on high For bloodless fields of victory. What though he was not called to feel The cross of flame, or torturing wheel: Yet daily to the world he died, His flesh, through grace, he crucified." _John Keble._